[SamBoogieNYC]

The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hašek - this book is pee-in-your-pants funny. A Czech satire about WWI. Definitely shines a light on the absurdity of war and various institutions - a lot still applies today. There is profundity in the dark humor, and at the same time it is a great mood-lifter. The character Svejk stays with you as a sort of idiot-genius-rebel, a cool archetype

[jerzyt]

This is a fantastic book, unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a good English translation. I've read it in Polish, which is close enough to Czech to stay much closer to the original. The English translation loses a lot of the cultural character.

[SamBoogieNYC]

Interesting - I read in Polish but not as well as English. I imagine there could be a lot of good wordplay that is missing. Maybe one day I’ll try and pick up the Polish version

[jerzyt]

I don't know if I can give justice to it but there are scenes, like the pub owner explaining that he had to remove the portrait of the emperor, because the flies were crapping on it. There's just something that's missing in the translation. Many jokes rely on language and cultural references. This book is like that.

[erezsh]

I agree. I read it in English and even though I felt some of the punchlines, for the most part I had no idea why they were supposed to be funny. I assume a lot of it is cultural references.

Catch-22 is great though. Dystopic and hilarious at the same time.

[AlexCoventry]

Along the same lines, Catch-22 had a huge influence on me, growing up. (Not necessarily entirely positive, though.)

[SamBoogieNYC]

It is very much like Catch-22 - which I have to say i don’t think I ever finished (was too young to really get it). I do remember some of the absurdities making me chuckle.

My family has told me stories about people like the main character, running his rackets in Catch 22. It must have been a truly crazy time

[sien]

Me too.

It really does capture the absurdity of big organisations brilliantly.